Wednesday, April 11, 2012

What is Daniel O'Malley reading?

I’ve always got a few books on the go, at least three – a new one, a re-read, and a research book. My current re-read is Death Before Wicket by Kerry Greenwood. Greenwood is a fellow Australian author and this is one of her books about the Hon. Phryne Fisher, a woman of style and elegance who solves murders in 1920’s Melbourne. Except that this one is set in Sydney. Now, although I am a huge fan of Phryne Fisher, I was a little wary the first time I read this because I am not a fan of cricket. It’s unpatriotic, but I can’t lie about it. I find cricket boring. However, this book is not really about cricket, and it is definitely not boring. Instead, it is about the odd characters at a university, and...[read on]

"The body you are wearing used to be mine." So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.

She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.

In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, THE ROOK is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer.